January is the month of giveaways over here and it’s awesome! Score for YOU! Earlier this week I posted about my AstroTwins giveaway so if you haven’t had a chance to enter yet you still have a little bit of time before it’s over! This weeks giveaway is back to a food focus and we all have resolutions and goals that we set in January. If you resolution is to incorporate more Gluten-Free living into your diet are you in LUCK! I’ve partnered with Krusteaz to do a giveaway of the same prize pack that they sent me when I wrote my The Gluten-free Gobble Waffle recipe using the gluten-free buttermilk pancake mix! My entire family is still raving about those waffles and how amazingly delicious they were! Trust me, you’ll want to get in on this giveaway! You can click THIS link to learn more about the mixes, find recipes and a retailer near you.
The folks over at Krusteaz asked me to be part of their “Krusteaz Blogger Bake-Off” to promote their new line of Gluten-free boxed mixes. They sent me two boxes each of their four new gluten-free mixes and all I had to do was create a brand new recipe that’s never before been created. My reward, the joy and satisfaction of writing a new recipe and a chance at winning their grand prize of a Crate and Barrel Gift Card. Kitchen time, a great topic for a blog post, recipe writing… I’m IN! Just to keep you reading, this is the ultimate Thanksgiving leftovers recipe! Read on!
I took a few days to look over each of the boxes, researched the recipes that have already been created and submitted and then did what I usually do when I want to talk about recipes; I called my trusty recipe consultant (aka mum) and talked through a few ideas. I received two boxes of each mix below and there were two that caught my eye: the cornbread and the pancake mix. I went through a few recipe ideas and this one just came to me the day after Thanksgiving when I took a box of the pancake mix home to make brunch. We had two gluten-free guests so I figured what better time to test a gluten-free mix than with a full house AND a few gluten-free eaters sprinkled in! We took a poll and everyone preferred waffles to pancakes so we were off. I made three batches of waffles so we could test flavors and have some fun with the mix-ins.
The first batch was just plain waffles with the mix. In the second batch I mixed in some fresh homemade apple sauce and the third was the crème de la crème: the gobble waffle. Now, before I get too far into the gobble waffle I wanted to talk about the plain and the apple sauce waffles for a minute. We made the plain waffles so we could test the taste and texture of the mix. I’m happy to report that all four men fully approved! If I hadn’t broadcast that they were gluten-free no one would have noticed! The plain one had a nice simple taste that was great with or without syrup. Delicious, tasty, crunchy on the outside and everything a waffle should be. The batch that had the homemade apple sauce added into the batter beat out the plain waffles by a landslide. The flavor of the cinnamon and pureed apples were a perfect addition to the tasty batter and were just amazing. It had the taste of white cake batter! But, this was all before the gobble!
What is the gobble waffle you might ask? Well, the gobble waffle is the ultimate Thanksgiving day left-overs brunch recipe. It combines a box of the tasty, simple, pantry-ready Krusteaz Gluten-Free Buttermilk Pancake Mix with some left over turkey, gluten-free stuffing and a bit of gravy and/or cranberry sauce in place of syrup. Just when you thought that left-overs couldn’t get any better, you discover something like the Gobble Waffle. It’s crunchy, tasty, thanksgiving goodness all in one brunchy bite. My mum has used the Krusteaz pancake mix for YEARS but I have to admit that I was a little skeptical about the gluten-free mix. They just have that association of being not quite “there” for taste and texture but both the cornbread and the pancake mix blew my socks off! My gluten-free waffles were specifically requested for Christmas leftover brunch so you know they’re good! Thanks for being my secret weapon Krusteaz!
You can click THIS link to learn more about the mixes, find recipes and a retailer near you. I’ll be stocking this amazing, tasty gluten-free mix in the pantry for SURE!
*Krusteaz Gluten-Free GIVEAWAY* Krusteaz has agreed to partner on a giveaway! Stay tuned this week for details!!!
Gluten- Free Gobble Waffle Prep time: 5 minutes | Total Bake/Cook time: 10 minutes
Servings: 6-8 people |Level of difficulty: easy
Ingredients
1 box of Krusteaz Gluten-Free Buttermilk Pancake Mix
2 cups cold water
2/3 cup almond milk
1 1/2 tbsp oil
4 egg whites
Leftover turkey
Leftover Gluten-free stuffing ( Recipe here using Krusteaz Gluten-Free Cornbread Mix)
Gluten-Free Gravy or cranberry sauce to use in place of syrup if desired
Directions
Get out your waffle iron and pre-heat it. Pour the dry mix into a bowl and mix in the cold water, almond milk, oil and egg whites. Break up the turkey into small pieces and add into the waffle mix. Add the left over gluten-free cornbread stuffing and mix. Pour onto pre-heated waffle iron and cook until golden brown.
Serve with heated gluten-free gravy or cranberry sauce!
There is one part of Thanksgiving that I love, stuffing. I’m usually a hard core protein and veggies first gal but there is ONE day of the year that whole lifestyle gets turned upside down. This year is my lucky year, we get on both Thanksgiving and Christmas! But, there’s a little variation this year, we’re testing out gluten-free stuffing. We took my mum’s classic stuffing recipe and substituted the Mrs. Cubbison’s Corn Bread Stuffing for homemade gluten-free croutons.
I’d been baking through some of the gluten-free mixes that Krusteaz sent me as part of the Krusteaz Blogger Bake-Off and we had a half pan of the gluten-free corn bread and decided to adapt moms amazing classic stuffing recipe to be gluten-free.
Gluten-Free Stuffing prep time: 45 min | cook time: 1 hr 30-45 min
Gluten- Free Honey Cornbread and Muffin Mix
1 Cup almond milk
1/3 Cup olive Oil + some for crisping the crumbs
1 Egg
Poultry seasoning
1 lb. roll of gluten-free sausage
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1/2 bunch finely chopped celery
1/2 stick of butter
1 sour green apple, finely chopped
1/2 c golden raisins
1/4 c brandy
2 3/4 gluten-free chicken broth
Steps 1- 5 you can make up to three days ahead of time and store in an airtight container in the fridge. For day-of assembly, start at step 6.
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. To make the cornbread croutons, take the corn bread and cut into small chunks. Toss lightly with extra virgin olive oil and dust with poultry seasoning. Bake corn bread in pre-heated oven until crispy, 30-40 minutes.
Soak the 1/2 c golden raisins soaked in the 1/4 c brandy plus the 3/4 c. of the chicken broth. (Save the other 2 cups of chicken broth for later in the recipe).
Sauté onion in 1/2 stick of butter. Throw in celery and sauté until translucent. Throw in the chopped apple and let sauté for just a bit longer. Scoop the mixture onto a plate.
In the same pan, add the sausage and cook until crispy. Drain off any fat, there might not be any but you can soak it up with a paper towel.
Drain the raisins, saving the liquid, and add to the sausage in the pan. Add the onion celery mixture and simmer about 5 minutes. Then add the brandy and chicken broth from the raisins and an additional 2 cups of chicken broth.
Pre-heat the oven to 350.
In a large bowl add the sausage and veggie mixture and a box of the stuffing crumbs and fold until moist. Don’t over mix or crush the bread piece.
Butter either a two quart or three quart glass baking dish and add the mixture. Add a few pieces of very thinly sliced butter to the top of the dish. Cook 45 minutes covered in pre-heated oven.
Turn heat up to 415, remove lid and cook for an additional 15 minutes. The top will look a little burned but don’t worry, that’s the BEST part and it tastes AMAZING!
It’s officially soup weather. The sweaters, boots and umbrella have been pulled out and are here to stay. The rain is here and it’s cozy time. Browsing in the market on Saturday, I was drawn to the gorgeous leeks piled high in one of the bins at our local Whole Foods market. They were brilliantly colored, as big around as a hearty farm grown carrot and on sale. Check, check, check. There are two things I like to do with leeks; make a potato soup with them or sauté and eat them with olive oil and lemon for a snack. You can make soup with the stock sand sauté the leaves if you wish to have the best of both worlds. Sautéing leeks to eat as a snack would have NEVER crossed my mind, but I read it in a book I quite enjoy and have tried it a few times since. The book is something I picked up at a half-price book store a few years ago and find myself reading each year. It’s called “French Women Don’t Get Fat” by Mireille Guiliano. Now, let me pause here and say that I am not encouraging dieting behavior. The I love her healthy, holistic approach.
The focus of the book is teaching us how to eat for pleasure and nutrition versus eating, or not eating, as a diet choice. She discourages dieting and is a fabulous writer. I agree with her encouragement for people to view the relationships between food, weight and health within an over focus on a healthy happy lifestyle. Okay, back to sautéed leeks. I had the best intention of using two boxes of chicken stock that I received from an amazing food conference I just attended (IFBC!). We’re really aware of how much salt goes into our food and opt for low salt whatever we can (broth, soy-sauce, chips, mixed nuts, etc). I have to give the disclaimer that I’m a broth snob. I love broth and have been known to make up a pot of broth in the winters to supplement my massive tea intake. My mother makes amazing soups and has always set the bar high. I’ve never found a boxed or canned broth that I find remotely decent. I’ve always used the same stock my mum uses the brand Better Than Bouillon and I always make sure to get the reduced sodium base. You’ll always find the chicken and beef base in my fridge but they have ham, turkey, lobster, mushroom, the list goes on! One caveat, not all of their flavors come in reduced sodium but the chicken and beef ones do and Costco carries them so I’m a happy camper! So, I grabbed a few leeks, potatoes and onions and was off to make the first soup of the season.
As I mentioned before, we go low salt so at first when I tasted this soup it really felt like it was missing an ingredient. After calling my mother the soup master (Just missed her, she had already gone to bed!) and googling what flavor should hit the center of your tongue, which was right where the soup was missing some seasoning flavor, the mister and I decided that it was salt. Simple salt. I took out a few spoonfuls of the soup and cracked some fresh pink salt on top and low and behold…that soup was PERFECT!
The fun part about this soup is that you can completely change the flavor of the soup with a few very simple cooking variations! Throw in a few carrots, or add some turnips with the potatoes. Not big on thyme myself, but you could add a tablespoon or two of dried thyme or 1-2 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme and/or if you like dill, which I don’t, you can include ½ tsp dried dill, or 1 tsp chopped fresh dill. You can cook with truffle oil or use truffle salt, or any other amazingly flavored salt you have stumbled upon. You could cook bacon in the pan first and wipe half the oil out, and use the remaining half of bacon grease to cook up the veggies and potatoes.
How do you like your potato leek soup? Leave a comment!!
One Pot Potato Leek Soup {Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free}
1 Tbsp rice bran oil
1 medium yellow onion
3 large leeks, without the leaves, sliced into rounds
4 medium russet potatoes, washed and chopped and loosely diced
pinch grey or pink salt
fresh cracked black pepper, and more to taste
chopped fresh or dried parsley
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp Better than Bouillon Reduced Sodium Chicken base + 7 cups hot water
Pull out your stock pot. Heat the rice bran oil over medium heat. Chop your onions and add them to the pot, stirring occasionally. To prep your leeks, wash the stocks and cut off the leaves right where the light green turns dark green and the leaves start. Cut off the roots.
Cut the leaves from the stock
Cut off the very top of the leaf
Slice the bottom stock
Set the leaves aside (unless you want to wash them and include them which you totally can). Slice the stock in half, and cut 1/2 inch half moons until the stocks are all chopped. I do this so it’s easier to separate the leeks when I drop them into the pot.
Stir whatever you have in the pot a few times with each ingredient addition. Add the leeks to the pot and cover.
Cut your potatoes and add them to the pot to sauté for about 5-7 minutes. I cut my potatoes like I would for a breakfast hash: cut the potato in half, then half again and loosely dice.
Once you’ve sautéed the leeks, onions and potatoes for a bit, add a pinch of salt, pepper, chopped fresh or dried parsley and 2 bay leaves. I always add bay leaves to my soup and broths because my mother does and she makes the most amazing soups! Just remember to pull both of them out before blending or serving!
While this is sautéing heat up your tea pot to mix the bouillon base. I always mix the broth in a glass pyrex because just when you think it’s all dissolved into the water and pour it into your soup pot, you’ll see the huge chunk of bouillon that was hiding at the bottom plop into the pot! Not amazing. Mix the bouillon in your pyrex, assuring it’s dissolved, then add it to the pot and bring to a boil.
All the goodies in the pot
Soup pot
Let the soup boil for a few minutes then reduce to low heat, cover and simmer for about 45 minutes. Check the soup to assure that the potatoes are cooked through and turn off the heat. Go fishing for your two bay leaves and pull those guys out. If you have a stainless steel immersion blender, which I don’t, puree of the soup in the pot until you reach the desired level of smoothness. If, like me you don’t own a fantastic immersion blender, pardon me while I add that to my amazon which list which is 90% cooking tools and cook books! I use my trusty vita mix and blend it in batches.
Taste the soup as you blend it because this is your chance to add more herbs and spices since you’re blending the heck out of it and the flavors will be sure to mix well.
Garnish with whatever your heart desires:
cracked pepper
fresh chopped parsley
pumpkin seeds (roasted pumpkin seeds recipe) and sub paprika for the salt
shaved marinated carrots
chopped green onions
sour cream
chopped bacon
fried onions
a drizzle of some truffle oil
… your options are endless!
I met this delicious seasonal dish at a baby shower a few weeks ago. Let’s set the stage here; I’m not usually super amazing thrilled baby showers attendee. But, one of my very good girlfriends recently had her first shower and there was a sacred promise that there would be no games, which is a huge plus for encouraging attendance. Little did I know that I would be greeted upon entry with a glass of La Marca Processco (which is my favorite) and ushered into a room of absolutely fantastic gals. With a glass of bubbly in my hand and a smile on my face I was shown to the food table. This, my fine friends, was both a visual and tasty delight! There were numerous quiche options, fresh shrimp with cocktail sauce, three types of homemade mini cupcakes and an absolutely amazing kale radicchio salad which I shamelessly had thirds of.
The bubbly was also flowing, but, that has no correlation to the ‘yum’ factor of this salad. Not only was it visually delightful, but it was so delicious that I had to remind myself I was in public and shoving salad into my mouth as quickly as I could was not socially appropriate. It was tangy, creamy, crunchy, herbaceous, earthy and downright amazing. Three bites in I was begging for the recipe. It was a simple and side dish that is easily transported for events and was SUPER tasty. Had I hit the side-dish mecca? Quite possibly my friends, quite possibly.
For halloween our office did a “Crocktober” and one look at the food sign up sheet had my insides yelling for something even remotely healthy! Someone’s got to make a non-crockpot dish to balance this whole situation out right!? So, when asked to sign up for a dish to share I decided that there needed to be a little balance to the baked goods, 3 types of mac n cheese (including one that boasted being ‘texas style’ which apparently meant extra cheese and cream), pork, meatballs, cookies, brownies and otherwise carbacious cheese covered feast that was about to ensue. This festive gathering needing kale, lots of kale. Good, wholesome tasty kale. There was no other thought in my mind than to debut the kale radicchio salad recipe. If we’re being completely honest, I made this salad for a few reasons; one of preservation so I knew there would be something I would eat there, and I also really needed some motivation to blog this recipe (that a few people have specifically asked for in the past week) and try my hand at homemade poppyseed dressing. Unless I had a deadline of hungry mouths tomorrow and feeling the moral obligation to balance out the cholesterol and sugar levels of the office party, this recipe could have been put off for months.
This recipe is so easy and tasty it’s almost ridiculous. It really highlights the fall and winter seasonal flavors that might not be combined in salad form but are absolutely ridiculously good when combined. This recipe calls for one of my favorite seasonal ingredients, pumpkin seeds. Now, if we want to be fancy we’d call them pepitas instead of pumpkin seeds which has a literal translation of “little seed of a squash”. It’s basically the spanish culinary term for a pumpkin seed. I gave the salad a little upgrade by roasting them with paprika before adding them to the recipe. You can find my recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds here and just sub out the salt for paprika. This is one salad where you can really personalize! Next time I might also roast some delicata squash and add it in, or even pumpkin or butternut squash!
This salad is really going to be a seasonal staple for us and will be ever evolved. It makes a great simple, quick meal or healthy and tasty potluck dish! It’s super simple to make the night before and combine when you’re ready to serve. It’s gluten-free, dairy free, nut-free, healthy and easy. Yes PLEASE!
Seasonal Kale Radicchio Salad w/ Poppyseed Dressing
For the Salad
1 head kale, washed, stemmed, massaged and torn into pieces
1 head radicchio, washed and cut and cut in chiffonade
pepitas/ pumpkin seeds
olive oil
paprika
dried cranberries
1 small thinly sliced shallot
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lay the pepitas out on non-stick foil and spray with olive oil or other high-heat oil. Dust with smoked paprika and toast for 10 minutes, keeping an eye and adjusting time according to how your oven heats. Once they’re done remove from the oven and let cool.
Meanwhile, thoroughly wash and de-stem the kale.
I wash the kale well, and use a large OXO SoftWorks Salad Spinner to dry kale and I absolutely love it! Add a tiny bit of grey salt and massage the kale in the bowl until it reduces in size and turns a darker color.
Grab the radicchio, peel the outer layer, slice in half and core the halves. Pull apart a few layers at a time, fold and chiffonade. The chiffonade technique is basically rolling the leaves and thinly slicing.
Half and core the radicchio
Rolling up the radicchio
Roll the radicchio leaves
Radicchio roll
Slice the radicchio in thin layers
Successful chiffonade
Place kale and radicchio in a bowl. Add the toasted pepitas and cranberries to taste.
Place all dressing ingredients in a mason jar and shake to combine.
When you’re ready to serve, add the dressing to the bowl and toss.
Variations Substitute pepitas for walnuts and add goat cheese and parsley with plain oil dressing
Spiced pecans and dried cranberries with a warm bacon vinaigrette
Mandarine oranges with slivered almonds and a sesame vinaigrette
Roast up some delicata squash, butternut squash or pumpkin and throw it in
Last summer I got hooked on pumpkin seed butter. Before that, I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I felt pretty nut-butter gourmet knowing that there was macadamia butter as well as cashew butter. I knew that you could grind your own; I’ve seen and even used the machines in my local Whole Foods to make fresh almond butter. But those machines were big, and scary, not to mention loud and quite menacing to look at. The though had NEVER dawned on me that it was something that could be made at home. Until a combination of a strong desire for a food processor, DIY itch and budgeting came together. Random components, but quite a story!
This recipe was adapted from the the kitchn’s Pumpkin Seed Butter recipe. I LOVE that they say it was inspired by a nut butter that they tasted at the Portland Farmers Market because I’m pretty sure it’s the same nut butter that hooked me on Pumpkin Seed Butter. Nut-Tritious Foods is a wonderful little company based out of Vancouver, Washington. They do a great job of educating customers why cold-pressed nut butters are better for you. I pulled the info below from their about page because it’s REALLY important to know!
“… we COLD-PROCESS and don’t use heat to get our nut butter into the tub. Heat will oxidize the healthy fats (poly- & mono-unsaturated) and make them more like a saturated fat! Most all jar nut butters have been heat processed – you can tell by the ‘nutcrete’ in the bottom of the glass jar.” An additional note, the heat processing method allows the nut butter to sit on the shelf in a jar until it’s purchased. Personally, I’d much rather have the fresh stuff that I know is perishable and know that I’m getting the most nutrition out of my consumption.
2 cup raw pumpkin seeds, without shells
1/2 cup ground sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax meal*
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1 spoon of honey (to taste)
pinch grey salt
*Flax Meal: You can easily make flax meal in a coffee
Combine pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds , and flaxseed meal in your food processor. Blend until the ingredients are well chopped and blended. You’ll need to stop and scrape the sides down so all the ingredients get blended together.
Add the honey and blend until the nut butter starts to form. This can take up to ten full minutes so have patience! Once you see the play dough texture, where the seed butter starts to form a ball and move around the bowl you’re getting close! Add the oil and continue to blend 5-10 minutes more until the butter is consistently smooth. Your food processor might get warm but don’t worry too much, you can always let it cool a little bit and then blend away. I used the 1/4 cup of oil and it was just fine, but you may want to add more depending on how you like your nut butter.
Place in an airtight container (tupperware or glass jar) and store in refrigerator up to 2 weeks.
There are plenty of additions to this recipe, you can mix up the ratios. You can choose olive oil or coconut oil. You might want to add salt, or use salted pumpkin seeds. You can also pre-heat the oven to about 350 and roast the seeds on a parchment paper or foil wrapped cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes. If you oven roast them, stir the seeds once or twice during cooking and let them cool before adding to the food processor. There is also a delicious looking adaption for Maple Pumpkin Seed Butter and Chocolate Pumpkin butter.
It feels like fall in the city. The weather had been grey and gloomy all week, which is quite a change from last weeks sunburn weather! Grey clouds always get me in a comfy cozy mood, and inspire me to drink tea and curl up with a good book and a blanket. But, what’s tea without a little tea treat, am right?
This amazing banana bread entered into my heart a few weeks ago when I had a day off and went to go visit my sister at work. She’s been on this “Paleo Kick” that I usually roll my eyes at, but I have to say this recipe immediate became a kitchen staple and has now replaced my tried and true Banana Bread recipe that is YEARS old! It’s THAT good kids!
Gluten-free cooking is nothing new to me. I LOVE baking with Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten-Free Baking Flour and have made quite a few goodies with it. Most recently I made a Strawberry Basil Bread, Gingerbread cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, amazing Vanilla Cupcakes, and even tried my hand at Vegan Gluten-Free Donuts! To be clear, I am NOT a big believer in following every food fad that comes along, and most definitely did NOT jump on the Paleo band wagon when it came in vogue, nor am I on that bandwagon now. This bread is quite simply one of the most delicious healthy baked goods I’ve ever had. It’s mainly bananas and eggs, a little homemade almond butter, gluten-free flour, and some apple sauce to hold it all together. That’s it! No added sugars. No two stick of butter and 5 cups of refined white flour. Just simple, regular ingredients you can pronounce and happily eat.
There are many variations you can try with this recipe and I list a few at the end of this recipe. Next time I might throw in some blueberries, or try coconut flour to make a bit more of a dessert style bread. What variations would you, or are you, going to try?
Paleo Banana Bread Adapted from Civilized Caveman Cooking Creations Recipe Prep Time: 10 mins | Cook time: 30-45 minutes
Ingredients 2 1/2 cups yellow bananas, mashed (approx. 4 bananas)
4 eggs
1/2 cup homemade almond butter
4 tablespoons Apple sauce (original recipe called for melted grass-fed butter or coconut oil)
1/2 cup gluten-free flour
2 tsp cinnamon (original recipe called for 1 tbsp but that’s a little heavy for a summer bread)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder (gluten-free or homemade)
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of sea salt
Instructions 1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
2. Combine your bananas, eggs, and nut butter, and apple sauce and mix well
3. Add in in the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla, and sea salt and mix well
4. Grease a 9×5 glass (see notes) loaf pan with a fat of your choice (I use Rice Bran oil)
5. Pour in your batter and spread it evenly throughout
6. Place in your preheated oven and bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (If you use a metal pan it will probably bake in 35-40 minutes so start checking at 35 to ensure the middle stays moist)
7. Remove from oven and flip your bread out onto a cooling rack
8. Slice and serve
Variations
1. Alternate Nut Butter: You can use any almond butter you desire: coconut, sunflower seed, macadamia nut, etc
2. Alternate Flour: My sister uses coconut flour, but I bet that almond flour or macadamia nut meal could be delicious
3. Flavors: Cranberry Orange – Only use 3 tablespoons of butter. Add zest of one whole orange diced, juice of one whole orange, and 1 cup dried cranberries or fresh if you want
4. Flavors: Chocolate Blueberry – Add 1 cup of fresh blueberries and 1/2 cup of cocoa powder
5. Flavors: Pumpkin Pecan – Reduce the almond butter to 1/4 cup and add 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree and 1 cup of roughly chopped pecan pieces
If you want to make these into muffins, use the same recipe and for mini muffins bake approximately 25 mins and normal size muffins 30-35 minutes.
Updated Post: When the mister starts his taste-tester review with “I already convinced myself that I would NOT like this, but, it’s actually AMAZING!” you get pretty thrilled. And yes, he did speak in ALL CAPS for that last word, just in case you were wondering if I embellished the story at all. “And you used the bullshit {aka Gluten-Free} flour for this?” he asked. “Yes, I sure did”. To which he responds: “It’s not ridiculously sweet, and if you hadn’t told me there was basil in here I would have never known. This is REAAAALLLLY good!” Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a seal of approval on a recipe if I’ve EVER heard one! Updated recipe below and images are my own! Enjoy!!!
————–
Hello friends! I’m so sorry it’s been ages since I posted and we’ve been stuck on Blueberry Kombucha and Summer Sangria for… let’s just leave it at a “while”. Starting a new job sure has a way of changing nearly everything about life as you know it! I’ve been in my new job about 4 months now, and loving it. I’m also loving having a little bit of mental brain power when I get home in the evening, which has been lacking for about four months now. Between not having mental energy and somehow just really busy, I’ve found a little space where I simply just decide to relax a little instead of burning the midnight oil EVERY night. Hmm, guess you can teach a moderately aged dog a new trick hey? Needless to say, writing on the blog has been sitting on the “to do” list for a while and that list has been taking a little rest and relaxation time as well. For those of you still burning the midnight oil every single night: you should try the whole relaxing thing every now and then. It’s actually quite nice once you start to get used to it. And to my mother and father who I’m convinced are my only readers, you were right. J
Like many 9-5 worker bees, evenings usually consist of getting home after work, and if I’m good and motivated, the gym. Then, I’m off! Figuring what to cook up for dinner, thinking about packing both lunches for the next day, triage height of the laundry pile, and trying not to see the “to do” pile of papers and other things that have been taking a little relaxation break which has whittled out a few of them but there sits the remainder that still, at some point, to get done. We worker bees cherish our weekends to sleep in, brunch, relax, and yet still get to all the chores that we push-off during the week. My push-off pile takes the form of a pile of papers tucked into my shelf in the closet. On the top of that pile is deliciously summer recipe for strawberry basil bread that I decided this past Sunday, needed to become a real, baked, edible thing.
That’s not to say I’ve baked it. Because, well, I haven’t. You know that bit about the road to hell being paved with good intentions and all? That road never met a week of long work-days and a weekend of 80 degree and blindingly sunny Seattle days! In addition, when I purchased the basil on my few hours of shopping and running errands this weekend, I did have the best intentions of using most of it for the bread and then looked next to the basil and you know what was staring up at me? Sitting there looking ever so plump and inviting were gorgeous heirloom tomatoes. Somehow, four of them jumped into my basket, as did rosemary crackers, mozzarella, and a bottle of delicious Italian Chianti. Can you guess how much basil was left for baking the bread? I bet you can! I had even picked up extra strawberries this weekend so I could bake! Well, the sunshine and Caprese won over the baking, and I’ll pick up more basil at Pike Place tomorrow after work and bake this week.
The recipe was passed along to me by a friend who’s gluten-free. I’ll be making the recipe with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free flour so I can share it with her but you can use regular flour if you prefer. I’m also I’m going to sub out the heavy cream because 1) I feel compelled to somehow tinker with and personalize every recipe possible, and 2) heavy cream just seem so “Fall-ish” doing without it makes it feel like a more a summer bread. Hey, I never claimed to be logical! Other than that the recipe is pretty straight forward and a little out of the realm of what I would usually bake so I’m pretty excited to give it a go! I’ll be sure to update this post with my own pictures and a description of how it turns out!
Strawberry Basil Bread Adapted the Recipe By Rebecca Franklin posted on About.com
Prep: 10 min | Cook: 50 min
Yield: 1 9×5 Loaf
Ingredients:
3 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free flour
1 1/2 cups organic granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
7 ounces plain Greek-style yogurt + 3 tablespoons
3 eggs, brought to room temperature
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon chopped, fresh basil leaves (about 4 large leaves)
12 ounces fresh, washed, chopped strawberries
Preparation:
Pre-heat the oven to 350F and prepare a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan with a light coating of vegetable oil spray.
In a large bowl, stir the flour, sugar, and baking soda together. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the yogurt, eggs, oil, cream, and vanilla together until the mixture is smooth. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until the batter is nearly smooth with only a few, small lumps remaining. Gently fold the chopped basil and fresh strawberries into the batter.
Spoon the strawberry-basil batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake it for 45 to 55 minutes, until it tests done in the center.
Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before loosening the sides and transferring it to a wire rack to continue cooling.
It’s 3:15 am… a time of… well not really day OR night… it’s a time no person should ever experience let alone when they’re SO worn out and sleepy all they want to do is go back to sleep. I’ve you’ve been following A Byte of Life, you’ll have read the post on Spain (also found here) which was a MOST incredible trip! We were seriously debating how long we could just fall off the grid and NOT come home! But alas, common sense or something to that nature won and we got on the multiple planes home. Oh hey jet lag, how are you? Are YOU the reason I’m up at 3:15am!?
Turning to my tried and true comfort, I started googling for recipes. If I can’t sleep I may as well bake right!? My love for lemon poppy-seed is almost as strong as my love for a good bottle of red wine, and thankfully, the mister LOVES a good lemon poppy-seed ANYTHING! The request was made and I had a mission ahead of me: your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a delicious lemon poppy-seed baked good that’s not super sweet and melts in your mouth Well, now that’s a fun challenge!
Lemon Blueberry Poppyseed Bread
Vegan Blueberry Lemon Poppy Seed Bread
—-
1/4C canola oil
1/4 C honey
1/4C applesauce
1/4 C soy milk
zest & juice of 1 lemon
—-
2 C Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs poppy seeds
1 C fresh blueberries (put in freezer for about 30 minutes before using)
—-
Pre-heat oven to 375
Combine the oil, applesauce, soy milk, honey , lemon juice and zest in a bowl
Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the poppy seeds and mix to combine.
Add to the wet ingredients and incorporate
Fold in frozen blueberries. Note that the batter will be thick
Place into a greased loaf pan, sprinkle raw sugar on top
Bake at 375 for 35 minutes(turning once half way through cooking)
Tasting notes:
It’s not your typical fluffy, white flour, white sugar lemon loaf you’d get at Starbucks. This is a more rustic bread and it was quite good! The gluten-free flour lends to a bit more of a mealy texture. Next time I’d add a bit more lemon juice. It’s not a sweet bread at all, so you’d need a lemoncello glaze, or blueberry jam/lemon curd/clotted cream to make it more pastry-ish.
All in all, it’s a good solid rustic breakfast bread…and…I better go taste another slice before posting this review 🙂
Everyone has a hankering for a donut from time to time. Yes, this includes the healthiest of people! Now, if you’re silently saying, “Why no, I can resist a fluffy, melt in your mouth, little bit of heaven pastry goodness” then 1- you’re either lying or crazy or 2- your just bitter because you’re gluten- intolerant. Well, harbor bitterness NO longer my friend! We have a family member that is gluten intolerant and on his last trip to see us I had the itch to bake.On my recipe hunt, I found QUITE a few recipes for donuts, and once I got my drooling problem under control, created a Pinterest board to keep all my lovely donut finds in one place. But, as I started clicking through the recipes I found that many of them were fried, used gluten-filled flours, and called for xanthan gum or other additives.
While I’m a FIRM believer that deserts should never be desecrated and demoted into the “light” or “non-fat” categories and should remain their butter or chocolate anchored selves, I do also believe it moderation. So, I set out to focus on the baked donut recipes and FINALLY found one that didn’t call for xanthan gum or some other additive that I can’t pronounce or state with confidence what exactly it is. The gal over at Vegan YumYum had a delicious recipe for mini-baked donuts which called for regular flour so I made a few alterations and gave it a shot! I also did my research on baked donuts, and decided to go with the affordable Norpro 6-Count Nonstick Donut Pan from Amazon and purchased a 4-pack of the Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten-Free Baking Flour as well. With a few toppings gathered and the ingredients for the glaze in hand, I was ready to BAKE my Vegan* gluten-free goodness! *In order to make these donuts vegan, use the egg replacer in the recipe instead of the egg.
The donuts turned out to be a success, both men in the house had seconds and my gluten-loving one didn’t complain about the taste or texture. They are not going to be a complete replacement for the real deal full butter and flour style of donuts, and if you prefer a good fried old fashioned donuts beware that this will not replace that hankering and you better go get one..or two immediately! The texture was a bit different but the taste, especially buy the time the various toppings and glaze were applied it all tasted like a delicious donut! I followed the glaze recipe on the same website, and used sprinkles, shaved chocolate, coconut and cinnamon as toppings! You can take a glance at all our delicious toppings below
What’s your favorite donut topping?
Mini Baked Donuts Recipe adapted from Vegan YumYum Yield: Her recipe makes 20 mini-donuts but since I purchased the large donut pan, the recipe wound up yielding 10-12 donuts… I can’t remember because we were chowing on the first batch while the second batch when in!!!
Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Flour
1/2 Cup Organic Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp (scant) Nutmeg
1 tiny pinch or shake Cinnamon
Wet Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Soymilk
1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
1 Egg (Or you can use Egg Replacer for 1 Egg)
4 Tbs Earth Balance
Preheat oven to 350º F. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Combine wet ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium low heat and mix until earth balance is melted. This mixture should NOT get too hot, you should be able to stick your finger in the mixture. It should feel slightly warm. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. It should form a very soft dough. Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out dough into your un-greased nonstick donut pan. If you’d like “pretty” donuts, Smooth out the top of the dough with your fingers.
As you can see, the dough sits just below the rim. If you over fill, your donuts will come out looking like it has a little muffin top. Bake for 12 minutes. They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Invert hot pan over a cutting board or cooling rack to release donuts. Allow to cool completely before decorating.
Glaze with Sprinkles 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar (lump free!)
1 Tbs Soymilk
Bowl full of sprinkles (aprox. 1/3 cups
Whisk soy milk and powdered sugar together. Dip the “bottom” half of the donut (the side with the nicer shape) into the glaze, let some drip off, then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles. Transfer to a wire rack that has been set on top of some parchment paper. The excess glaze will drip through the rack onto the paper for easy cleaning later.
from Amazon and purchased a 4-pack of the 
as well. With a few toppings gathered and the ingredients for the glaze in hand, I was ready to BAKE my Vegan* gluten-free goodness! *In order to make these donuts vegan, use the egg replacer in the recipe instead of the egg. 
